When an older lady is mentioned thoughts of a sweet, caring and fragile are what come to mind. After reading a short story such as “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, a gentle woman is not described. Assumptions of elderly women can change when a secretive, self-centered, controlling women named Adela Strangeworth is presented into many lives.
Adela Strangeworth is believed to be a fragile, kind woman but when viewing her daily routine of writing nasty, hateful letters to her ‘friends’ her image changes for those who know. Yet all of the people in the story don’t know that Adela Strangeworth is the one writing the letters because she is very secretive. Anyone to assume that this sweet lady could do something so insulting, would be thought as crazy, as Adela is the kindest lady in town, one who is easily able to start conversation with a clerk at a grocery, or with a stranger walking down the street. Adela also is able to write letters insulting people, as she mails the letters at a time when no one could
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Strangeworth’s personality does not consist just of being secretive, but as being controlling. If she is to view someone performing a task poorly, or acting a certain way that she is not fond of she would write one of these terrible letters regarding their actions, and showing that she does not approve, meaning they should change what they were previously doing. Not only does she write the letters to tell someone on what they are doing atrociously, but she feels pride in herself after writing them, as she has shown what she wants to be changed. Adela writes the letters because she feels as if her controlling their actions helps them, “ Miss Strangeworth never concerned herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion” ( Jackson, 1941, p.167). Writing the letters and controlling how people should notice/ act seem to bring a joy into Adela’s life as she feels it helps them keep their life in
Miss Strangeworth is quite a scornful person. She tends to notice the negative things about a person, and is judgemental. Here are two quotes from the story in which Miss Strangeworth is scornful. “Miss Strangeworth wondered, glancing at her quickly, if she had been taking proper care of herself. Martha Harper wasn’t as young as she used to be, Miss Strangeworth thought. She could probably use a good strong tonic. “Martha”, she said, “you don’t look well.” Miss Strangeworth came into a grocery, and saw an old friend. Though the first thing she notices is how unkept she is. Another time Miss Strangeworth judges someone negatively is when she was walking past the library and saw one of the staff she knew. “Miss Chandler seemed absent minded and very much as though she was thinking about something else. Miss Strangeworth noticed that Miss Chandler has not taken much trouble with her hair that morning, and sighed. Miss Strangeworth hated sloppiness.” In that quote, there was obvious negativity coming from Miss Strangeworth and Miss Chandler. Clearly, she didn’t take time to assume that she may have had a rough morning; she just stated how she hated sloppiness and walked
There is one letter in particular. which shows how important this correspondence is to her. I hate you. you do not write back nor be my Pen Friend I think you are the Ice Queen instead of a king.
...s, and why he writes them at all. Instead of judging him, she tries to understand and fix it her own way, and it affects how he sees his writing:
In the short story “The Possibility Of Evil “ by Shirley Jackson was several symbols to tell her story about Miss Strangeworth. One symbol she uses is her name Strangeworth. She was a strange women but everyone thought she was normal and nice, but in reality she was mean and strange, she thought she was better than everyone else. Another symbol she uses is the letter Miss.Strangeworth sent to people. They mean more than just letters because they show how she really is, she is showing her true colors. Finally another symbol was her flowers, the flowers meant that she was better than anyone else. The flowers were fancy, Miss. Strangeworth thought she was elegant and polite . Certain symbols have certain meaning in today's culture because they
Adeline had been treated like trash all of her life by her parents. “Nothing will ever come to you.”(Yen Mah 103) Niang is a very strict, distasteful, and hated person in the book. This is important because it shows that Niang is cruel. “Girls like you should be sent away.”(Yen Mah 103) This is important because it shows that Niang hates Adeline. All in all, this shows that when Adeline was a child, she was treated like trash by Niang.
At the end Miss Strangeworth writes anonymous letters to people. The letters express her assuming things about other people and giving her opinion. An example of her being cruel is, She writes a letter to Mrs. Harper and her baby and says, “Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children should they?” She writes this because she bases her letters on assuming things instead of going to the person and getting the facts. Another example of Miss Strangeworth being cruel is, She writes another letter to Mrs. Harper and says, “Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?” Miss Strangeworth writes this because she doesn’t seem to care how anyone else feels except for her. This proves that my topic sentence is true by giving details at the end of the story, it finally shows her true colors and shows how really mean she can be.
This story revolves around a character known as Miss Adela Strangeworth whose ancestral home is Pleasant Street which also happens to be the setup used to develop the story. However she is from the initial stages of the story portrayed as an old lady that is relatively calm and harmless especially with regards to the lives of her neigbours. She is portrayed in the story with the author as a proud lady who believes in the fact that she owns her town perhaps a factor that is evidenced by the way she interacts with the members of her community. Her constant conversations with the members of the community perhaps paint her as a relatively calm, loving and caring lady to the members of the community.
The hidden secret of Miss Strangeworth leaves everyone speechless. Within the short story “The Possibility of Evil” written by Shirley Jackson, the main character, Miss Strangeworth, has a secret that no one would have expected for a seemingly nice elderly lady. In Miss Strangeworth’s down time, she secretly writes cruel and inconsiderate letters to people within her town. These actions would label Miss Strangeworth as a bully. The unbearable letters she writes, the way she goes about them, and her love and dedication for writing them proves that she is very much a bully.
But what she was really doing was sending cruel and insulting letters anonymously to the people of the town. In the story she sent three letters to Mrs. Harper, suggesting that her husband was cheating on her by saying “Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on thursday? Or is the wife really always the last to know?”(Jackson, 1965, p. 169). One to Helen Crane saying, “Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children should they?”( Jackson, 1965, p. 169 ). Finally a last one to Don Crane suggesting that he should kill his idiot nephew by sending a note that said “You never know about doctors. Remember they’re only human and need money like the rest of us. Suppose the knife slipped accidentally. Would Dr. Burns get his fee and a little extra from that nephew of yours?”(Jackson, 1965, p. 170). As you can tell Miss Strangeworth is a very cruel lady on the inside even if she looks happy and cheery on the
Like any good character, Mrs. Strangeworth has understandable desires. The possibility of evil the story entails is from Miss Strangeworth ideology of what she sees is the truth. In turn, she writes deagroitive letter to her townspeople, feeling that a solid plan for stopping the evil in the town she's lives in. For her, writing these letters let herself feel a sense of pride for the town she deeply love. “The sun was shining, the air was fresh and clear after the night’s heavy rain, and everything in Miss Strangeworth’s little town looked washed and bright.” (Shirley 1) If her desire wasn’t to make a better town, she would have never written such letters. Mrs. Strangeworth has desire like any other character with well intentioned, but with ability to take it to the extreme makes stand out from the crowd.
Along with being arrogant and outgoing, she is also a very meddlesome person. After Miss Strangeworth ran into Miss Linda at the market, her actions afterwards demonstrate to us how she is meddlesome. To demonstrate, on page 367 it states, “Looking after her, Miss Strangeworth shook her head slightly. Martha definitely did not look well.” She’s meddlesome in the sense of her snooping around where she isn’t needed. It’s not her job to determine whether there was something wrong with Martha. Likewise, on page 366 the text states, “Mr. Lewis looked worried, she thought, and for a minute she hesitated, but then she decided that he surely could not be worried over the strawberries. He looked very tired indeed.” This quote also shows us that Miss Strangeworth continues to involve herself in other people’s business. Mr. Lewis may be worried about something larger than strawberries, but it isn’t necessary for her to find it normal to involve herself. Her character in this sequence of events is basically the definition of being meddlesome.
But what the other members of her community aren't aware of is that she's actually a hateful, and nosey the instigator of many of the town's problems and concerns. She often wrote Anonymous letters to the townspeople, gossiping and criticizing about others problems. One example of this behavior is when she writes to Mrs. Crane, “Didn't you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn't have children, should they?” (Jackson 4) What she says makes people feel bad when they receive letters like this. She writes these because she thinks that she can fix the problems of others. And make “her” neighborhood a better place. She then goes on to write to Mrs. Harper, “Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday?” (Jackson 4) This probably made Mrs. Harper worried or even upset. Maybe she's not aware of the pain she causes others, they're not even aware that it is Miss Strangeworth writing the letters. This shows the reader that one should it be read deceived by another's
She has this sneaky side to her but nobody knows about it. When she wrote those letters she would write with a utensil that would not usually use and she would use a different script that wasn’t her normal. Thus, “Miss Strangeworth always uses a dull stub pencil when she wrote her letters, and she printed them in a childish block print.” She did this so nobody could tell that she was the one sending the letters since they were not encouraging or helpful letters. As well as them being to people in the town about their kids she wouldn’t want one of them to get mad and come for her or her precious flowers. She had to be really sneaky when she mailed the letters and she had her ways to sneak around the town and not get caught. Therefore, “....she had always made a point of mailing her letters varu secretly….she timed her walk so she could reach the post office just as darkness was starting to dim….” She would do so because she did not want her name of any of this foolishness and didn’t want to start stuff with the people of this town. Lastly this is another was that she is something that nobody knows about.
She does this by revealing Miss Strangeworth’s ironic actions of her destructive attitude and hypocritic ways. This statement shed lights when Miss Strangeworth is writing letters to Mrs. Harper and Helen, and she notices how the town is becoming more vile, “The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded, and need to be watched; the world was so large , and there was only one Strangeworth left in it,” (Jackson, pg. 253). Miss Strangeworth exemplifies arrogance and hypocrisy by stating that she is the solution to all evil, yet she is initiating evil by means of writing letters to people conveying her pernicious words and telling them that they are not good enough. She expresses how she dislikes evil, therefore she is contradicting herself with her actions since she continues to spread evil through her judgemental
She hides her actions and attempt to justify them until she is expose by the letter from the paper regarding her novel entry. She is ignorant to her unrealistic judgements about Cecilia and Robert and attempts to fix the problem when she made it worse. She realizes her mistake when the letter questions the conflict of her novel and she witnesses her attempt to hide the true horror behind her decision. While she attempts at hiding her problem in the draft, she made it more noticeable to the paper and drain the luster of the plot. Her realization of her ignorance honor the lovers’ romance and made her strive to atone her former